LITERAT

Fullstack Developer & Whitewater Kayaker & Scout

Notes from WebExpo 2026 conference

WebExpo 2026 wrapped up and I survived with a notebook full of opinions. Most confirmed what we already know, a few challenged it. Here is what was worth the trip.

29. 5. 2026development Edit on GitHub

Design Systems & UI

We are building our Spirit Design System well enough. Most of the talks were just a reminder that we are on the right track. But If I can pick one highlight, definitely check your Typography.

A real story: Dropping MUI for clean CSS - Kate Astrid

community driven UI library can be a burden
clean CSS is far more powerful and flexible than ever
dropping MUI can enhance performance and the user experience, if we replace it carefully

Select it! Styling new HTML UI capabilities - Brech De Ruyte

styling a native HTML select element
capabilities of the future CSS and browser support

Why adding 45th theme to your product won't be a problem - Anastasia Gartseva

about how to setup your design tokens structure so adding multiple themes won't be a problem
core, semantic and component tokens

Design systems that scale smart: Building systems that grow with your teams, tools, and products - Johannes Lehner

How bad typography kills UX - Oliver Schonderfer

4 stories about bad typography and how it can kill the user experience
example on IKEA and multi language and multi device support across the world
example on Apple and liquid glass and how contrast is killing
example on Oscars and how badly structured hierarchy can switch the winners and losers
example on Pope's tomb and usage of kerning and letter spacing
a theatrical and engaging talk, but also informative and full of examples
Pimp My Type

Now I understand why finding good typography for this website is so hard. 🤔

Accessibility

Accessibility matters! More than you can imagine.

What I wish someone told me when I first started using ARIA - Eric Bailey

how ARIA attributes actually work
main ARIA principles and how to use them correctly
also breaking some myths around the ARIA

Designing for everyone: How we build accessibility into our design system - Peter Leško

how Tatra Bank builds the accessibility into their design system
throughout the questionnaires, workshops and testing with the users
accessibility documentation, examples and guidelines for the designers and developers
going through some examples of accessibility issues and how to solve them

AI & Future of development

AI is everywhere, but I did not hear anything strongly new or surprising.

Design like no-one is watching - Mike Kus

AI will not replace designers, because it can't replace creativity, it is still a statistical model
notably, the slides were hand-crafted in Photoshop and Figma on purpose — no AI
examples of built designs and websites
the best part is the end how he created all those slides in Photoshop, hand drawing and Figma

Partnering with AI: Building future-ready teams - Daria Rudnik

custom framework for driving the AI adoption and teams

Fossils, Rockets, and Octopuses: A leadership framework for AI adoption - Senta Čermáková

another custom framework for AI adoption
sorting people into animal categories by their attitude towards AI and how to deal with them

How to prevent AI Agents from accessing unauthorized data - Sohan Maheswar

zanzibar-like system access control - SpiceDB, a database for authorization systems
Zanzibar: Google's Consistent Global Authorization System
SpiceDB - open source version of Zanzibar

Taste: How performance and other factors make everything, especially AI, better - Tejas Kumar

I was looking forward to hearing Tejas speak again, his talk from previous year was great
now he was speaking about the taste in development and it was quite abstract; not as good as last year
however, it ended with the idea that text-based UI in agent chats is not enough, and there are ways to add some UI and the "taste" of the resource into the MCP answers

Software & Product Architecture

If anything, just start with the contract testing. It is worth it.

Going from containers, to pods, to Kubernetes: Help for your developer environment - Cedric Clyburn

talk about the Podman and what it is capable of nowadays
a personally very interesting talk, I must give it another try
it is far more capable now, when Kubernetes is a must have for your deploys

Contract testing for teams that wants to move fast - Robin Pokorný

how contracts and schemas differ in the world of APIs
how to use contracts and test compatibility between multiple consumers and providers
how to help API teams move faster and not break anyone's other work
worth implementing
Pact.io

Refactoring an entire product from scratch? Stories from the product and design side - Jan Toman

story of entire migration of Supernova.io from product point of view
how to pick features that need to be migrated, cut the rest or re-create them from scratch

Other

Most of these were pure joy and entertainment, unless you know the Git as I do 😉

JavaScript: Weird by design and we ❤️ it - Krasimir Tsonev

a curious list of strange JavaScript features and how and why they are like that
genuinely funny and engaging talk, but also informative
JSFuck

The most bizarre software bugs in history - Mia Bajić

interesting stories around software development and its bugs
the Boeing 737 Max and how the software was responsible for the crashes
the Therac-25 radiation therapy machine and how the software was responsible for the deaths of patients
the Mars Climate Orbiter and how the software was responsible for the loss of the spacecraft
the Civilization video game and how the software was responsible for nuking by Mahatma Gandhi

Flying a drone with gestures, bananas and Web APIs - Lucky Nkosi

definitely the best talk of the day
so funny and engaging
how to control a drone using multiple sensors for gestures, electric current, and voice commands via Web APIs
do not be afraid to experiment and play with things, it can be handy in the future

How to Git away with murder - Sergés Goma

clickbait title, but not very surprising if you are already a Git power user
amends, interactive rebases, reflog and other features that can allow you to mess with Git history and clean up your past mistakes

Keynote: Patterns for restarting the world - Switch Angel